Processing facilities are often managed using process control systems. Example processing facilities include manufacturing plants, chemical plants, crude oil refineries, and ore processing plants. Among other operations, process control systems typically manage the use of motors, valves, and other industrial equipment in the processing facilities.
Conventional process control systems routinely include a large number of field devices, such as sensors and actuators. Communications with field devices often occur using various standard or other protocols, such as HART, FOUNDATION Fieldbus, or Control Net. These types of protocols typically support the use of device description files, which describe the online functional behavior of field devices.
A device description file can be interpreted by a host application and used to generate a user interface. The user interface allows personnel to configure and diagnose a field device. The device description file also typically contains a list of parameters supported by the field device and the methods that can be performed on the field device. A field device method is often defined in a device description file as a sequence of operations or steps to be performed during a maintenance, calibration, configuration, diagnostic, or other task. When a user invokes a field device method through the host application, the host application guides the user through each step, taking user input values as required by the method and performing the intended operations using the field device.